No quick fix for rotary-area traffic

Motorists make their way along Herring Cove Road in Halifax on Tuesday. (PETER PARSONS / Staff)

The fuming drivers sitting in fuming cars along the Herring Cove Road will likely grow in number as condominiums continue to sprout up around the Armdale Rotary.

Halifax Regional Municipality has two ideas to combat the congestion — widening Herring Cove Road and the possibility of a fast ferry in Purcells Cove.

The change to the rotary is at least three years from realization. And the ferry service from Purcells Cove warrants a mention in the regional plan with Bedford but has not moved past that in more than five years.

Coun. Linda Mosher said she’s hopeful the widening of the Herring Cove rotary entrance can be moved up from 2016 because of the continued bottlenecking.

“But the road network really can’t change that much more so we’re going to have to start looking at other options,” the Armdale-Peninsula West councillor said of a ferry.

About $3.2 million has been pegged to revamp the section that leads into the rotary, Halifax’s regional transportation manager said Wednesday.

A city traffic plan from 2010 calls for widening the street to four lanes — from the reversible three — but Dave McCusker said the final design will be drawn up in 2015.

“That’s really where we’d determine what the extent of the work is and what needs to be done to make that function better,” McCusker said. “It’s difficult at this point to say if there’s any (private) property requirement or … what the exact configuration might be.”

The three lanes leading into the rotary from Herring Cove Road also block the right turn lane to Quinpool Road, McCusker said, something that would need to be addressed in the reconstruction.

There haven’t been any changes to the project’s timeline, McCusker said. That’s something council would have to approve, as it would affect the municipality’s capital budget for the year.

The regional plan also calls for widening of Herring Cove Road from two to four lanes where it narrows beyond the rotary. The municipality has acquired the property where it would need to expand so no private homes would be affected, McCusker said.

He had no timeline any more definitive than what’s set out in the regional plan, which only dictates it will happen before 2031.

The widening should help with the expected population boost to the area, McCusker said, something that could be accelerated as condominiums continue to rise, including a 60-unit building by Aboud Raymond Toulany and W.M. Fares Group proposed for vacant lots at 286, 290 and 292 Herring Cove Rd.

But expanding the roadway can only do so much to accommodate the increasing number of vehicles, Mosher said. Instead, the councillor wants the municipality to invest in a ferry.

The likelihood of that happening in the next five years, even the next decade, is slim.

Although the regional plan earmarked both Purcells Cove and Bedford as potential ferry hubs, Metro Transit’s scheduling manager said no other studies have been done on the success of such a plan in the cove.

The public transit service is expected to plot out its operational plan for the next five years this spring. Metro Transit’s Dave Reage said it’s unlikely it would include a ferry in Purcells Cove.